Huge queues after Sydney patisserie goes viral on Chinese TikTok

A Sydney patisserie owner had no idea why queues were forming outside his store. Then he discovered he’d gone viral on Chinese TikTok.

A Sydney patisserie is struggling to keep up with demand after going viral on the Chinese version of TikTok.

“We used to do about 100 cakes a week,” Paul Adam, the owner of Du Plessy Pralin & Otello Chocolates Patisserie, told news.com.au’s podcast, From the Newsroom. “Now we’re doing around 150 cakes a day, and we can’t do more than that.”

The boom in business is all thanks to a Chinese content creator named Max who posts under the handle @AustralianShopping on the social media platform, Douyen.

In December last year, Max posted a video online about his encounter with an Aussie woman named Margie on a train in NSW.

In the video, Max told Margie that he’d just been to an award-winning patisserie and he shared some of his purchases with her, including a vanilla slice and apple turnover.

After trying the sweet treats, Margie told Max that he could find better products at her favourite patisserie in West Pymble in Sydney.

She recommended he visit Du Plessy Pralin & Otello Chocolates Patisserie to try their Japonaise cake which features two layers of almond and hazelnut meringue with a light/dark chocolate mousse, and ranges in price from $50 to $75 depending on the size.

The video of Max and Margie’s interaction went viral on Chinese social media, and many of Max’s 2.6 million followers urged him to arrange a cake date with his new Aussie friend.

Margie.

The Japonaise cake.

In March, the pair reunited for a trip to Margie’s favourite patisserie to try the Japonaise cake.

Once again the video went viral, and the patisserie’s Japonaise creation quickly became the hottest cake in Sydney with queues forming around the block.

It came as a big surprise to the store’s owner, Paul Adam.

“On a Saturday morning about a month ago, every single person that walked in was Asian and they were just lined up (out the front),” Mr Adam told news.com.au.

“I eventually said (to one customer), ‘I’ve got no idea what’s happening here. Could you tell me please what’s happening?’ … And they showed me on their phone … their Chinese TikTok.”

Mr Adam watched Max’s videos which had been viewed millions of times.

“I said, ‘you are kidding, aren’t you?’” he laughed.

Over the next couple of days the queues outside the patisserie continued to grow, “until it got to the stage where there were 80 people standing outside!”

Business has been flat out ever since.

“It is totally and utterly nuts,” Mr Adam told news.com.au.

“We had to take the phone off the hook for 10 days because we couldn’t answer the telephone anymore. There were phone calls from all over the world. People couldn’t speak English and were asking if we could post the cakes to China.”

Paul Adam.

The cake has gone viral.

Customers have even been flying in from interstate purely to get their hands on a Japonaise.

“Three ladies from Brisbane rang up on Saturday and said, ‘if you can guarantee three cakes on Monday, we’re gonna fly straight back with them. Can you guarantee us those cakes, because we’re going to book the tickets around those guarantees?’

“I said, ‘if you are going to come from Brisbane, I’ll guarantee you three cakes,’” Mr Adam laughed.

For those keen to try a Japonaise, Mr Adam recommended you call the patisserie and order in advance, adding, “but if you can wait until May, because we’re going to take two weeks off over Easter, which we really, really need!”

You can hear more about Max and Margie’s friendship and the viral cake in today’s episode of the From the Newsroom podcast.

Originally published as Huge queues after Sydney patisserie goes viral on Chinese TikTok